Memento
by Grundle Berries
Summary: The Patronus isn't the only thing Snape has left of Lily and her memory, and he's ashamed of this fact.


Memento

* * *

Dumbledore watched her fly away, and as her silvery glow faded he turned back to Snape, and his eyes were full of tears.

"After all this time?"

"Always," said Snape.

Dumbledore went silent. His fingers were steepled in front of him. He didn't quite know what to make of the situation. Severus Snape was an enigma. Strange, sad, twisted, brilliant. _Much like me,_ Dumbledore thought, furrowing his weathered, old brow. Sad, indeed. very sad. Shaking, even. Why was he shaking?

"Severus?" he asked gently, stealing a glance from the corner of his eye to observe the Potions master. Trembling, pale, mouth set firm. This was unusual. Such open displays of grief from Snape were fairly alarming. "Severus?" he repeated.

Snape muttered something in reply.

"Come again?" Dumbledore said kindly, tilting his head.

A deep, heaving breath came out. "I _said..._ that. Wasn't. _All,_ " Snape forced out slowly, his voice hoarse and thick with shame.

Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. What in the world could he have meant by that? What wasn't all? "I'm afraid you've lost me."

Eyes screwed shut, Snape's arms were rigid at his sides, wand pointing downward like a cane. "I. I... _I..._ "

"You?"

"I... _took,_ " Snape whispered, spitting the word out like a fly. " _I took._ " Good Lord, was he about to cry?

"You..."

"I... I _TOOK,_ " Snape moaned, the confession garbled as the sob rose up in his throat and wailed out through his gaping mouth. "I-I to-o-o-ooook!"

Dumbledore frowned again, but made no move to comfort his colleague, frozen in befuddlement as he tried to work out what manner of thievery would have gotten Snape so worked up. He'd... stolen some memento of Lily's? Dishonorable and shameful, yes, but-

Oh.

 _Oh._

"Severus... no," Dumbledore gasped, a wide, horrified grin starting to lock into place beneath his beard. Why was he smiling?!

Clamping his mouth shut and whimpering a few times, Snape - with great effort - raised his shaking wand arm to the open window of Dumbledore's office.

"Severus, _no,"_ Dumbledore repeated in a dying squeak, lost beneath the fierce hiss:

" _Accio poopoo."_

 _Accio poopoo_

Accio poopoo.

It seemed to echo about the office, overlapping and reverberating, as Dumbledore feebly shook his head and insisted that Snape stop, that same appalled grin still frozen on his lips. A little, mad laugh had entered his voice. "Severus, you can't. Severus."

But his pleas couldn't un-summon the object of Snape's shame, and those following moments of silence thickened the tension around them. A faint whizzing sound floated through the window, gradually increasing in volume.

Death in fiction is oftentimes portrayed in a glamorized, beautified manner. Bood, gore, dismemberment, all serve moreso as elaborate window dressing on the unfortunate bodies felled, rather than a grim reflection on the lives taken. The realities of death include far more unpleasant side effects often glossed over by authors, artists, directors... such as the evacuation of one's bowels.

When Lily's petrified shit zoomed through the window to hover to a stop, Snape's face crumbled. He barked out a short, wheezing sob, and then another, before hunching over to the lump with his hands outstretched and tears streaming down his sallow face into his gawping mouth.

"No," Dumbledore repeated, over and over, giggling and shaking his head. His withered hand tugged at his beard. "Oh, Severus, no. No."

"LILY," Snape roared through his tears, embracing the poo, cradling it like an infant, pulling it ever closer...

"Severus, no..."

Now in full-blown, body-wracking hysterics, Snape shoved the foul, brown, lumpy mass into his mouth and began chewing, tears streaming down his face all the while. "LIIIILLLYYYYYY!" he cried through the mouthful, his declaration muffled. "LIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLYYYYYYYYYY! I LOOOOOOOOVE YOUUUUUU!"

Dumbledore watched, mesmerized and broken, as the grieving man consumed his dead crush's feces and clutched his head in agony. Things would never be the same between them after this moment, this night. No matter who they felled, they would never truly win.

From the outside of the memory, Harry panted, shook his head in disbelief, and closed his eyes, swallowing the lump that had come up in his throat. He put his wand to his temple.

" _Avada Kedavra,_ " his voice said, sounding so far away from his body as the green light flashed around him.


End file.
